This is an entry to Mark Evanier's list of the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968. For more on this list, read this. To see all the listings posted to date, click here.
Howard Morris
Most Famous Role: Atom Ant.
Other Notable Roles: Jughead (on Filmation's Archie shows), Beetle Bailey, Mr. Peebles (owner of Magilla Gorilla), Jet Screamer (on The Jetsons), Wade Duck (on Garfield and Friends), The Gopher in the original Winnie the Pooh shorts, Flem (on Cow and Chicken) and hundreds of commercials including the Koala in a series of popular ads for Qantas Airlines and the Hamburglar and other denizens of McDonaldland.
What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Howie became famous as Sid Caesar's sidekick on Mr. Caesar's legendary comedy shows. He directed TV shows like Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes and The Dick Van Dyke Show, movies (including "Who's Minding the Mint?") and commercials. He guested on hundreds of TV shows and is probably best remembered as Ernest T. Bass, who appeared on five episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.
Why He's On This List: Howie was one of the most creative, spontaneous actors who ever voiced cartoons. Have him read a line five times and you got five different interpretations, each more colorful than the one before. Daws Butler used to cite him as a true comic actor who could find the "funny" in whatever lines you gave him.
Fun Fact: One of Howie's first animation voice jobs was doing all the major roles for "Munro," a 1960 theatrical short directed by Gene Deitch which won the Academy Award that year.
I am still a day or three from returning to full-speed blogging so here's another rerun so you won't have wasted one entire click to come to this page. Here is what I did one day in February of 2010…
Friday afternoon, I did something I haven't done for around ten years. No, not shower…though I did that in the morning before the other thing. At the request of a friend, I went to an elementary school and talked to kids about cartoons. I showed them an episode of The Garfield Show and then I gave drawing lessons, teaching them how to draw Charlie Brown, Garfield, Scooby Doo, Bart Simpson, Spongebob Squarepants and an original character that we all created together. The kids, who were all around eight years of age, did quite well and some showed promise. It would not surprise me one bit if twenty years from now, some professional cartoonist came up to me at a convention and said, "Hey, were you the guy who came to my third grade class in 2010 and taught everyone how to draw Charlie Brown?"
I used to do this every few months because…well, I usually learn as much as the kids do. It's fascinating to watch them view a cartoon I've written and to see what they laugh at and what holds their attention. Unsurprisingly with kids this age, the physical humor gets more response than funny lines or situations…but some of Garfield's snide comments got immense laughs. More significant, I thought, was not what made them laugh but what held their attention.
The group I spoke to consisted of two separate classes crammed into one classroom. When I was ushered in, the instructors were spending a lot of energy, as they apparently do all day, just getting the kids to stop talking and listen. I have a fairly good memory of my schoolroom when I was that age and I don't recall us having quite that attention-deficit disorder. A generational thing? Too much exposure these days to fast-paced media? I don't know enough about children in and of this age to be able to say. I do know that once I told these kids I wrote the Garfield cartoons, I got the undivided focus of about two-thirds of the room and when I mentioned that I used to write Scooby Doo, I snagged the other third.
Well, why not? If you were that age, wouldn't you rather listen to a guy talk to you about Scooby Doo than about long division?
Another thing that surprised me: I was telling them how when I was their age, I'd watch cartoons on TV or read comic books of the characters I saw on TV…and then I'd teach myself to draw those characters. One of the kids asked me what the first one was — and while I'm not sure it was, I said, "This one." Then I turned to the whiteboard on which I was drawing and began sketching a Yogi Bear…about as well as I did when I was seven, I might add. As I started, I thought, "I wonder if they'll even know who this is." Yogi's not seen on Cartoon Network. He's on Boomerang a lot but I don't know how many homes get that…and there are no comic books.
Well, I needn't have worried. I was halfway through the drawing and everyone was screaming out, "Yogi Bear! Yogi Bear!" He was one of everyone's favorite characters. The clear fave by a wide margin, by the way: Spongebob. After I taught them how to draw Mr. Squarepants, they all wanted lessons on his supporting cast…and were disappointed that I simply don't know those characters. Several of them also do Spongebob impressions, one so well that Tom Kenny's job is in serious jeopardy. Sorry, Tom.
The first time I ever did this was back in '73. I was taking some morning classes at Santa Monica College and I was asked by a young lady who was in one of 'em. Afternoons, she was a student teacher at a nearby elementary school and she thought her students would benefit from a little chalk talk about cartooning. At the time, I wasn't interested in that but I was interested in the young lady. If she'd asked me to play Twister in the fast lane of the Santa Monica Freeway at rush hour, I probably would have.
I got there and watched a little of the class before I began. That's when I was told it was a "problem" class of kids with "learning disabilities" which mostly consisted of not paying attention to anything the teacher said and occasionally hurling items at her or each other. For an instant there, I wondered if playing Freeway Twister might not be preferable…but then I was introduced and when I started talking about cartoons and drawing, I suddenly had rapt attention. The teachers later said they had never seen that much focus. The kids didn't remain silent but like the ones yesterday, all their chatter was suddenly on topic, about the subject being taught.
Apart from the fact that the teaching assistant never did go out with me, the trip couldn't have gone better…a fact for which I deserve zero credit. Anyone who could have drawn the pupils' favorite characters could have done it, and many could have done it a lot better than I did. The point was that that kind of thing reached these kids…who, I'm horrified to realize, could have been the parents of the children I spoke to on Friday. That many years have passed. Still, the reaction was identical and it always is.
So is the moral of the story. The idea is to leave them with a number of thoughts. One is that this is a job. You can actually make a living drawing funny pictures or writing silly stories. Another thought is that you don't have to make it your occupation. There can be joy and satisfaction in just creating for the sake of making something.
Yet another is that whichever way you decide to go with it, it requires practice…lots of practice and dedication. The fourth thought is that it can be well worth it. I'm not sure classrooms ever do a good job of convincing children that things they learn there can have value to them later, possibly because so much of it will not.
Lastly, and this one is not so much a thought as a sensation…but it's just neat to be able to do that. Being able to draw Spongebob is like gaining a super-power. It might be worth investing the effort to learn to do it just so you can do it. I felt that way about drawing when I was a kid and also about magic and ventriloquism and a few other things. Even though I didn't go into those fields, I'm quite sure those interests had a role in getting me to where I am today. My father, who had no real marketable skills and always regretted it, used to say, "It's not that important what you do in the world as long as you can do something!"
Anyway, that's how I spent my Friday. And like I said, I think I learned at least as much as they did. Maybe more.
As some of you may know, I was the Supervising Producer of The Garfield Show, which is seen all over the globe. I'm still not sure what a Supervising Producer supervises but I wrote a lot of the series and directed the voices and did various producer-like chores. We did…well, I'm not sure if I should say four or five seasons. Seasons 1-4 consisted of approximately 26 half-hours each. "Season 5," as they called it, was four 11-minute episodes that could also be described as one four-part story.
The 78 half-hours that comprised Seasons 1-3 have been running for many years in the United States on Cartoon Network and/or Boomerang. Both channels are owned by the same company and they've sometimes run them on one or the other or for a while on both, usually four half-hours a day, seven days a week. They have run these over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
They do quite well in the ratings, which is why they run them over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Though they've had Season 4 and "Season 5" sitting on the shelf for a long time, they haven't aired them because Seasons 1-3 do so well as they run them over and over and over, etc. 4 and 5 have been broadcast all over the world; just not in the U.S. of A.
Right now, the shows from Seasons 1-3 air on Boomerang Monday through Friday at 10 AM, 10:30 AM, 10 PM and 10:30 PM. On the weekends, Boomerang has them at 2 PM, 2:30 PM, 10 PM and 10 PM. These are all Eastern Times I'm giving you.
And starting tonight, there's an additional half-hour every Tuesday night which will be airing the never-before Season 4 and (I think, later on, "Season" 5). This half-hour airs on Boomerang at 8:30 PM Eastern and then the same episodes air at 11:30 PM. Now, here's where it gets complicated…
Each half-hour of The Garfield Show contains two 11-minute episodes. Some of the 11-minute episodes in Season 4 are standalone 11-minute stories and some of them are 11-minute chapters of five-part stories. Tonight, for example, they're airing Part 1 and Part 2 of the five-part story, "The Lion Queen." Next Tuesday, you get Part 3 and Part 4 and then the following Tuesday, you get Part 5 of "The Lion Queen" and…well, I'm not sure. Maybe one of the standalone episodes or maybe Part 1 of another five-parter.
This is not the way I'd have chosen to air the shows but I do want to recommend them to you anyway. These episodes feature some of the best CGI animation I've ever seen on television and I was real happy with how the stories came out. (There are also songs; I wrote the English lyrics for tunes written by others in France.) "The Lion Queen" also has a superb voice cast: Frank Welker, Gregg Berger, Wally Wingert, Jason Marsden, Julie Payne, Fred Tatasciore, Phil LaMarr, Misty Lee, Laraine Newman and Stan Freberg.
I'm not comfy plugging my own work so this is as much as I'll say now. I hope you enjoy them and I hope one of these days soon, they run all five parts of a five-parter, one right after the other. I really like them that way.
The First Lady of Cartoon Voices, June Foray, celebrates her 98th birthday today — the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha Fatale and Granny (owner of Tweety and Sylvester) and Jokey Smurf and Magica DeSpell and Mrs. Cauldron (on The Garfield Show) and Cindy Lou Who and if I list them all, this post will run into her 99th birthday and maybe the big 100.
A few years ago, the late Earl Kress and I assisted June with the writing of her autobiography. Before we started, we figured we knew everything she'd done and boy, were we wrong! As we find out, not only did we not imagine the length and breadth of this lady's career, it turned out she didn't even grasp it. For close to three-fourths of a century, she was so busy working in cartoons (and radio and commercials and dubbing movies and…) that she couldn't track all she'd done.
I remember one day when she phoned me and said, "Mark, I just got a residual check for a Frank Sinatra movie called Dirty Dingus Magee! Was I in that?" Apparently, yes. I haven't seen it but June probably looped a couple of voices somewhere.
This is an amazing woman. For around four decades, she was the "workingest" voice actress, working at the top of a highly competitive field. (Do you have any idea how many people think they can do voices?) 5-6 days a week, she would work from morning 'til after dark going from session to session to session. Everyone wanted to hire her because she was the best at what she did.
It has been a pleasure and an honor to know her and to work with her. And it's a pleasure and an honor to wish her a happy birthday. I have some other things to say about her but I have to save something for her 99th birthday, her 100th birthday, her 101st…
Your latest encore post reminded me of a question that I've thought about for a while. How do you come up with ideas or plot points on which to hang a story/script/article, and then expand it into a full story/script/article?
I'm not talking about "fat cat jokes about Garfield. Hilarity ensues," although after 37 years it may be difficult to find new ones. I'm talking about some new project using characters you may not be totally familiar with, or ones you create yourself.
I've had a few small ideas crop up from time to time that are not in my comfortable wheelhouse, and I'm lost when it comes to expanding them beyond a paragraph. It could mean these ideas may not be worth expanding any further, but since I've never made it beyond that point, I don't know.
Well, if I were you, I'd try an experiment. I'd pick my best idea and I'd commit to writing it to its completion. Don't worry about what might happen if it's not good. Nothing will happen except that you'll have wasted a few hours and probably learned something in the process. Too many new writers write like the minute they finish something, it's going to be read and judged by everyone they know.
They need to get over that. One of the emotional controls a writer requires is to be able to write something, spend days or even weeks on it and then to review it and say, "This isn't good enough" and toss it out and immediately start on a rewrite or something else. It's easier to do that when you're prolific but even if you agonize for hours on every word, you need to be able to do that. (I just wrote a long blog post about Donald Trump, then gave it another read and decided it didn't really say anything that was worth saying. So into the "Probably Not" folder it goes…)
Just write something — and here, I'll give you a push. If you don't have an idea, pick one of these…
Think of someone in your life you really disliked…someone who wronged you horribly. Then write a fictional story of that person getting punished, humiliated, arrested…whatever they deserve. And don't forget the scene where he or she comes to you and begs you for forgivance.
Think of someone in your life you lusted after…someone with whom you wished you'd had a romantic involvement. Then write a fictional story of that person coming to you, confessing that the feeling was mutual and the two of you do act upon your mutual yearnings. Make it as dirty as you like.
Pick one, write it and show it to no one. You can delete it once it's done…or for extra credit, leave it for a few weeks, then come back and read it and see if it reads better or worse to you then. The point is that you don't have to write for publication. You can write for yourself. Most of us spend a certain amount of time writing for ourselves whether we know it or not at the time.
I suspect that if you can't write one of the above stories, you can't write much of anything…at least of a fictional nature. But you can write something, Jef. You wrote me that message. You've written many to me and they all seemed reasonably intelligent even when I thought you were dead wrong about some political belief.
You had something to say so you said it in a message. If you have something longer and more important to say, you could use the same muscles and say it in an article or essay. That's what I do. I write messages and then I write essays and I write stories. The software differs and if I'm addressing a large audience instead of one person, I'll probably make an extra effort to be witty or funny or understandable…but it's the same me at the same keyboard.
A lot of folks who want to write but can't need to demystify the act. They think of it as giving a speech in front of the whole world when, in fact, a new writer's efforts aren't much different from writing a letter to a friend. You do that all the time.
For some reason, I didn't warm to the 1989 film version of Alfred Uhry's play, Driving Miss Daisy. It won a ton of awards including the Oscar for Best Picture but when I saw it in a theater, it felt very talky and predictable to me. The folks on the screen seemed like actors performing a script and the emotional turns they were making seemed obvious and uninteresting.
This was obviously a minority viewpoint…but I have those about a number of acclaimed films. Sometimes, I say so out loud and sometimes, I keep my opinion to myself because it really upsets some people if you don't love that which they love. (You should see some of the outraged mail I've gotten from people who love cole slaw and apparently think I will someday get it banned so they cannot enjoy it anymore. I mean, they're right. I will. But they're just so nasty about it.)
Because I do like Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones, I made a point of TiVoing and watching the new PBS Great Performances production of the play and I did like that. I'm not suggesting Lansbury and Jones are better actors than Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman from the movie — seeing the show staged as a play before a live audience may have been the key difference for me — but I felt more chemistry and more interest in Miss Daisy and Hoke Colburn. Your mileage, as they say in automotive ads and strip clubs, may vary.
I especially liked watching James Earl Jones, an actor I've always liked — which is not to say I've ever disliked anything about Ms. Lansbury. But I thought Jones was just so good.
He's a nice person, too. One day at a Garfield voice recording session, he was working in the adjoining studio and we got to talking in the area where they have refreshments and snacks. That man has one of the greatest laughs I've ever heard — deep and rich and from the heart and belly. I kept trying to think of funny things I could say to him just so I could hear that laugh.
Then, to my surprise, he asked if we ever had a role in Garfield that he could do. I think I offered to let him play anything he wanted, even if it meant firing Lorenzo Music…but, well aware he was one of the highest-paid announcer-types in the business, I warned him we only paid scale to guest stars. He said, "That doesn't matter. You just all seem like you're having so much fun in there, I want to be a part of it." He was in town the next three weeks and if we were recording again during that time — and we were — he would be glad to come in and play any part I wrote. Guess what I wrote the next day.
What a delight. The other actors were, of course, thrilled. And I remember him being very respectful to them all and even a bit timid, since he was aware they were all more experienced at this particular type of acting than he was. Someplace in there is one explanation as to why he's such a fine actor.
So I'm recommending the PBS version of Driving Miss Daisy, which reruns several times on most PBS channels (check your listing) in the next week or three. You may have to search for Great Performances to find it…and believe me, it lives up to that name.
Oh, hell. I'll make it even easier for those of you who have good Internet connections. I'll embed the video here so you can enjoy it. I did…
I was, you may recall, a big fan of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson…and since it went off, I miss it more than I thought I would. And one of the things I liked most about it was in its later years, Mr. Ferguson's sidekick — the Gay Robot Skeleton, Geoff Peterson. Ferguson is a great ad-libber and he was matched magnificently by his robotic pal. This was because of a gentleman named Josh Robert Thompson, who operated Geoff and supplied the voice, as well as the voices of anyone on the phone, the unseen bandleader, the rhino over the fireplace and several more. He was awesomely fast and funny.
Geoff Peterson, I am informed, is presently housed in a storage locker out in the Valley. He'll be back somewhere sometime but no one knows where or when. Josh Robert Thompson, meanwhile, is not in a storage locker. He's touring with his stand-up act and doing voices for cartoons…and he'll be on our Saturday Cartoon Voice panel at Comic-Con along with five other brilliantly-talented folks. We always turn away a few hundred folks (at least) who want seats for this and the Quick Draw! event that precedes it in Room 6BCF…so if you want to see either panel, get there early. The time and more info are here on this schedule of the panels I'm hosting at Comic-Con…
Thursday July 9, 2015 at 3:30pm – 4:30pm in Room 8
THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
The men who bring you Groo the Wanderer show their faces and explain just how and why it is they bring you Groo the Wanderer, as well as other silly comics. It's the award-winning duo of SERGIO ARAGONES and MARK EVANIER, accompanied by the equally heralded STAN SAKAI (creator of Usagi Yojimbo), and coloring whiz TOM LUTH (if he can get away) holding court, answering your questions, and doing what they do best, which obviously is not writing little blurbs like this for the Comic-Con Events Guide.
Saturday, July 11 at 11:45am – 1:00pm in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
Once again, three supercharged cartoonists duel to their dooms with Sharpies, each attempting to outdraw all opponents. It's one of the most popular Comic-Con events, and this year it's personal. Our returning champion SERGIO ARAGONES (MAD, Groo the Wanderer) goes mano a mano against SCOTT SHAW! (The Simpsons, The Flintstones) and Disney legend FLOYD NORMAN. Plus, you can expect a few other cartoonists to get their licks in. Presiding over it all is your Quick Draw! Quizmaster, MARK EVANIER. No wagering, please.
Saturday July 11, 2015 at 1:00pm – 2:30pm in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES 1
The fine art of giving voice to animated characters is again demonstrated by a dais of the best. This year, join KEONE YOUNG (Star Wars Rebels, G.I. Joe), PAT MUSICK (Rugrats, Extreme Ghostbusters), ERIC BAUZA (Ben 10, The Adventures of Puss in Boots), JESSICA DiCICCO (Gravity Falls, Pound Puppies), PHIL MORRIS (Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Ultimate Spider-Man) and JOSH ROBERT THOMPSON (Family Guy, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson). MARK EVANIER, as usual, gets these talented folks to demonstrate what they do so well.
Saturday July 11, 2015 at 4:30pm – 6:00pm in Room 5AB
THAT 70'S PANEL
Once again, this panel talks about what was so special about comic books in the 1970s, starting with all the new talent that entered the field and bonded with the old talent. Discussing those days will be CHRIS CLAREMONT (X-Men, Wolverine), BOB LAYTON (Iron Man) DON McGREGOR (Black Panther, Sabre), DEAN MULLANEY (Eclipse Comics), and others. MARK EVANIER, who was writing Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo, will officiate.
Sunday, July 12 at 10:00am – 11:15am in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's been 21 years since we lost him and we still can't stop talking about the man some called The King of the Comics. Jack Kirby may have been the greatest creative talent the field has ever seen and once again, some of his friends and fans will be discussing why. This time, it's ROB LIEFELD (Youngblood), MARV WOLFMAN (Tomb of Dracula), J. DAVID SPURLOCK (Vanguard Productions) and PAUL S. LEVINE (attorney who represented Jack). Naturally, your moderator is Kirby assistant and biographer MARK EVANIER.
Sunday, July 12 at 11:30am – 12:45pm in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES 2
Another panel of experts at voicing animated characters convenes for your edification. They'll tell you what they do, show you what they do and probably fracture a fairy tale in the process. This time, we have JULIE NATHANSON (Final Fantasy, Spider-Man), BOB BERGEN (Porky Pig, Star Wars), MISTY LEE (Ultimate Spider-Man, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH), WALLY WINGERT (Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Garfield Show) and CHRIS EDGERLY (The Simpsons, Dreamworks Dragons). Hosting and directing is MARK EVANIER (The Garfield Show).
Sunday, July 12 at 2:00pm – 3:00pm in Room 25ABC
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
Forget about the insides! What makes for a great cover on a comic book? This topic will be discussed and debated by some artists who've been responsible for some of the best. With KEVIN WADA (She-Hulk, Adventure Time), DAVID AJA (Hawkeye, Immortal Iron Fist), LORA INNES (The Dreamer), STEVE LIEBER (Quantam & Woody, Road to Perdition), and CHIP KIDD (Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, Batman: Death by Design). Your host is MARK EVANIER, and that about covers it.
Sunday, July 12 at 3:00pm – 4:30pm in Room 25ABC
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
How does one get into the business of doing cartoon voices? Well, careers have been launched by folks coming to this panel and listening to some serious free advice from people actively engaged in the process from all sides. Explaining the industry this year is PAUL DOHERTY (secretary-treasurer of the Cunningham-Escott-Slevin-Doherty Talent Agency), actors BOB BERGEN and MISTY LEE, and your moderator (and voice director/supervising producer of The Garfield Show), MARK EVANIER. Only serious students need show up.
As always, participants and times and everything is subject to change. I suggest that if you want to get into the Cartoon Voices panels or Quick Draw!, you get there well before their start times. The line may be forming at this very minute.
Thursday July 9, 2015 at 3:30pm – 4:30pm in Room 8
THE SERGIO AND MARK SHOW
The men who bring you Groo the Wanderer show their faces and explain just how and why it is they bring you Groo the Wanderer, as well as other silly comics. It's the award-winning duo of SERGIO ARAGONES and MARK EVANIER, accompanied by the equally heralded STAN SAKAI (creator of Usagi Yojimbo), and coloring whiz TOM LUTH (if he can get away) holding court, answering your questions, and doing what they do best, which obviously is not writing little blurbs like this for the Comic-Con Events Guide.
Saturday, July 11 at 11:45am – 1:00pm in Room 6BCF
QUICK DRAW!
Once again, three supercharged cartoonists duel to their dooms with Sharpies, each attempting to outdraw all opponents. It's one of the most popular Comic-Con events, and this year it's personal. Our returning champion SERGIO ARAGONES (MAD, Groo the Wanderer) goes mano a mano against SCOTT SHAW! (The Simpsons, The Flintstones) and Disney legend FLOYD NORMAN. Plus, you can expect a few other cartoonists to get their licks in. Presiding over it all is your Quick Draw! Quizmaster, MARK EVANIER. No wagering, please.
Saturday July 11, 2015 at 1:00pm – 2:30pm in Room 6BCF
CARTOON VOICES 1
The fine art of giving voice to animated characters is again demonstrated by a dais of the best. This year, join KEONE YOUNG (Star Wars Rebels, G.I. Joe), PAT MUSICK (Rugrats, Extreme Ghostbusters), ERIC BAUZA (Ben 10, The Adventures of Puss in Boots), JESSICA DiCICCO (Gravity Falls, Pound Puppies), PHIL MORRIS (Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Ultimate Spider-Man) and JOSH ROBERT THOMPSON (Family Guy, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson). MARK EVANIER, as usual, gets these talented folks to demonstrate what they do so well.
Saturday July 11, 2015 at 4:30pm – 6:00pm in Room 5AB
THAT 70'S PANEL
Once again, this panel talks about what was so special about comic books in the 1970s, starting with all the new talent that entered the field and bonded with the old talent. Discussing those days will be CHRIS CLAREMONT (X-Men, Wolverine), BOB LAYTON (Iron Man) DON McGREGOR (Black Panther, Sabre), DEAN MULLANEY (Eclipse Comics), and others. MARK EVANIER, who was writing Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo, will officiate.
Sunday, July 12 at 10:00am – 11:15am in Room 5AB
THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL
It's been 21 years since we lost him and we still can't stop talking about the man some called The King of the Comics. Jack Kirby may have been the greatest creative talent the field has ever seen and once again, some of his friends and fans will be discussing why. This time, it's ROB LIEFELD (Youngblood), MARV WOLFMAN (Tomb of Dracula), J. DAVID SPURLOCK (Vanguard Productions) and PAUL S. LEVINE (attorney who represented Jack). Naturally, your moderator is Kirby assistant and biographer MARK EVANIER.
Sunday, July 12 at 11:30am – 12:45pm in Room 6A
CARTOON VOICES 2
Another panel of experts at voicing animated characters convenes for your edification. They'll tell you what they do, show you what they do and probably fracture a fairy tale in the process. This time, we have JULIE NATHANSON (Final Fantasy, Spider-Man), BOB BERGEN (Porky Pig, Star Wars), MISTY LEE (Ultimate Spider-Man, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH), WALLY WINGERT (Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Garfield Show) and CHRIS EDGERLY (The Simpsons, Dreamworks Dragons). Hosting and directing is MARK EVANIER (The Garfield Show).
Sunday, July 12 at 2:00pm – 3:00pm in Room 25ABC
COVER STORY: THE ART OF THE COVER
Forget about the insides! What makes for a great cover on a comic book? This topic will be discussed and debated by some artists who've been responsible for some of the best. With KEVIN WADA (She-Hulk, Adventure Time), DAVID AJA (Hawkeye, Immortal Iron Fist), LORA INNES (The Dreamer), STEVE LIEBER (Quantam & Woody, Road to Perdition), and CHIP KIDD (Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, Batman: Death by Design). Your host is MARK EVANIER, and that about covers it.
Sunday, July 12 at 3:00pm – 4:30pm in Room 25ABC
THE BUSINESS OF CARTOON VOICES
How does one get into the business of doing cartoon voices? Well, careers have been launched by folks coming to this panel and listening to some serious free advice from people actively engaged in the process from all sides. Explaining the industry this year is PAUL DOHERTY (secretary-treasurer of the Cunningham-Escott-Slevin-Doherty Talent Agency), actors BOB BERGEN and MISTY LEE, and your moderator (and voice director/supervising producer of The Garfield Show), MARK EVANIER. Only serious students need show up.
As always, participants and times and everything is subject to change. I suggest that if you want to get into the Cartoon Voices panels or Quick Draw!, you get there well before their start times. The line may be forming at this very minute.
I'm going to let you live vicariously through a dilemma with which I must deal in the next few days. As you may know, my backyard is a veritable zoo at times. I get raccoons. I get possums back there. I get a lot of cats. Given my location, the cats aren't surprising but the raccoons and possums are.
For close to a year, I've been feeding a feline who comes around every night — a cute little orange/white/grey creature who was so young when she put in her first appearance that she was referred to as The Kitten. I've never gotten around to giving her a better name so she's still The Kitten even though she is apparently on the verge of having some of her own.
This is the same animal who, last year, I accidentally locked in my garage for five days. You can read about that and see a photo of her in this posting. Despite repeated suggestions that I arrange to have her spayed, this was not done…and while I'm not 100% positive, she now looks like she's soon to be a mom.
I have a friend — a fine actor some of you may know of — who is a major saver and protector of cats and dogs. He's on the board of several organizations that deal with the problems, and folks there tell me he's donated staggering amounts of cash and time to saving animal lives. I won't mention his name because I don't want to be responsible for him being deluged with calls like the one I placed to him, asking what I should do about The Kitten. He said I had to get her spayed and that, depending on how far along she is, this may involve a kitty abortion. This made me uneasy. I'm pro-choice but it's not like she's going to be choosing.
My friend — who, let's remember, loves animals dearly — assured me it was the kindest possible gesture. "You wouldn't believe how many cats and dogs have to be destroyed every day because no one will adopt them," said he. No one will even adopt The Kitten. (I couldn't do right by her, especially since Carolyn is allergic to 'em.) Three or four more cats will just be three or four more scrounging through trash cans, begging at back doors, living under houses, etc. I trust my friend so I decided it had to be done.
He put me in touch with an organization called The Stray Cat Alliance and they, in turn, put me in touch with a veterinarian who is part of their program and who handles strays for a very modest fee. (I called the vet down the street from me. He wants about $390. With this volunteer vet, it'll be more like seventy bucks.) So the problem now is how to get The Kitten to him.
Yesterday, I bought a plastic pet transport at Petco for twenty bucks. It turns out though that the vet won't accept a feral cat in anything but a humane-style cat trap. I pointed out to his assistant that I've made friends with The Kitten. She lets me pet her and I could probably grab her up and cram her into the pet transport. No, the assistant said. It must be a trap of the approved variety. So I've just returned from a local pet food store where I rented a trap for ten bucks a day. (Total price, which they'll charge to my Visa card if I don't return the trap is eighty bucks. I'm already thinking that if this goes past four days, I may just buy the thing. There will be other strays.)
While I was there, I saw something that reassured me I was doing the right thing. It was Cat Adoption Day at the pet shop and there must have been fifty orphan cats there in cages, begging passers-by to take them home. It was very sad…and I especially felt bad for a woman there who was in charge of finding homes for these lovely animals. I talked with her a few moments and learned how she's always racing against time to get the cats adopted, and how it shatters her heart to think of how many she hasn't been able to save. When I told her what I was doing, she said, "Thank God…I wish more people would do this. They don't realize the problem they're creating by not getting their pets neutered."
So I'm home with the trap. The Kitten always comes around in the evening and lately — a tip-off that she's probably eating for more than one — in the morning, as well. I don't want to trap her tonight and make her suffer in the cage all night so I'm going to try it in the A.M. I'll report back here and let you know how things go.
Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10:35 AM
The Kitten was waiting at the back door this morning to be fed…waiting right next to where I'd left the (unset) trap. The folks who told me how to use it said to leave it outside so the animals can get used to its presence and I did that. The Kitten seems used to its presence, which is not to say she's prepared to walk into it under her own power. The trap is a long, metal cage with spring-release doors on either end. You can set both entrances or one. I set one. At the center of the cage, there's a little floor panel and when any weight at all is put on it, it releases the door(s). I took a small amount of cat food in a paper bowl and placed it so she'd have to get all the way into the trap and stand on the floor panel to eat it.
And that's the way it's supposed to work. It hasn't yet.
She's been sniffing the trap and walking all around it and looking at me with a "What the hell is this?" look. But she was looking about as eager to step inside as I'd be to attend a
Hold on. You'll have to make up your own punch line because I think I just heard the trap spring. Gotta go check.
Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10:42 AM
And the trap worked to perfection! It caught a feral cat!
Unfortunately, it caught the wrong feral cat…another neighborhood stray who apparently isn't as smart as the one I'm trying to snare. The Kitten, the one I want to take in for repairs, inspected the trap for half an hour before wandering off, untrapped. This cat, the one I just let out, got herself penned in just a few minutes. (I'd consider taking this cat in to be spayed too, but I see it already has been. They mark one ear with a little notch when they do it.)
Okay, so wrong cat released, trap rebaited. I'm hoping The Kitten didn't observe any of this and learn just how the trap works.
In the meantime, I sit here…appropriately working on a script for the new Garfield cartoon series. Maybe I should have baited the trap with lasagna.
Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10:54 AM
Someone wrote to ask what kind of trap I was using. It's a Havahart (that's the brand name) model #1045. You can read all about it on this page. As you can see, there are doors on either side. You fold them upwards and then the door is held open by a little rod that connects to another rod that connects to the floor panel. When the cat (even the wrong cat) steps on the floor panel, the rods move, the one holding the door open disengages and the door slams shut, trapping the critter within. It reminds me a lot of how I wound up working for Hanna-Barbera all those years.
Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 11:44 AM
Okay, I'm going out for a brunch-type meeting and I don't want to leave the trap set when I'm not here. So I'm going to unset it. Looks like Operation Spay will be delayed 'til tomorrow. I hope The Kitten doesn't have an Internet connection so she can read all this.
Monday, April 7, 2008 at 9:43 AM
No sign of her this morning. So far.
Monday, April 7, 2008 at 4:20 PM
The Kitten showed up at my back door around 3:45…very friendly but refusing to go into the trap, no matter how yummy the food in it was. I think she's been reading this weblog and knows what I'm up to. I finally went out, pet her a bit and then attempted to place her into it — gently at first then, when she fought like mad, with all the strength I could muster.
Didn't work. She kicked and flailed and never remained in a position that would enable her to fit through its door. Then she banged the cage, the door slammed down…and I had no choice but to let her go. I couldn't take one hand off her to open the cage.
She's sitting out in the far side of the yard, refusing to go anywhere near the cage which I have reset. If I can't get her into it in the next thirty minutes or so, I'm going to have to put it off 'til the morrow. The vet won't take her after 6 PM and it'll take a good 45 minutes to get her there.
Monday, April 7, 2008 at 4:52 PM
Okay, I'm giving up for today. Tune in tomorrow…same cat-time, same cat-channel!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 7:53 PM
There was one season of Hawaii Five-O where it seemed like every week, about forty-seven minutes into the show, the following would occur. Steve McGarrett would be sitting in his office after hours and with the lights down. Everyone else would have gone home for the night but McGarrett, being the dedicated supercop that he was, would be sitting there, just staring out the window, wondering about that week's master criminal who had to be caught in the next thirteen minutes, not counting station breaks.
Someone would find him there…someone (say, Danny Williams) who'd come back to the office late because he forgot something. He'd be amazed to find McGarrett still there, still on the job. But he'd also be unamazed because he, like everyone, knew the kind of stuff from which Steve McGarrett was made. "What are you thinking about, boss?" he'd ask, even though he knew full well what McGarrett was thinking about.
McGarrett would swivel around in his office chair and point or otherwise indicate the window with its beautiful nighttime view of Hawaii. And with a tightening of the throat and jaw, telling us how personal this whole matter was to him, McGarrett would say in a strong but frustrated voice…
"He's out there, Danno…and he's mocking us."
Why do I bring this up? Because The Kitten is out there somewhere and she's mocking me.
I think one of you tipped her off. She keeps coming around — four times so far today and it's just past sundown. Each time, she avoids the entrance to the trap. She walks all around it. She sniffs the sardine that has been placed inside. She acts as if she even wants that sardine…
But does she go in and get it? Ha. If she'd go in and get it, would I be sitting here, resurrecting old Hawaii Five-O memories? She also won't let me get near her at all today. Runs off faster than the audience for some shows I've written.
I wanted to trap her in the morning so she wouldn't have to sit in the trap all night before I can take her in to the vet. Trouble is, tomorrow morning my yard and the neighbor's will be full of gardeners and that usually scares the animal population off for a day. So if I can't get her tonight, it may be a while.
Still, I'm not giving up. Why? Because Steve McGarrett never gave up. Then again, he only had to catch psycho mass murderers. He never had to face the treachery and craftiness of The Kitten. She's out there and she's mocking me.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 9:39 AM
She's still out there and she's still mocking me.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 2:26 PM
Last night, I was up 'til all hours — 4:30 ayem — alternately working on a Garfield project and dealing with a cat who's almost as crafty. The Kitten, as I call her, was around the yard all evening and I actually lured her into the trap four separate times without managing to spring the door and seal her inside. I found, by the way, that chunks of tuna worked better than anything else as bait.
The trap, as I'm sure I've explained, is a long, narrow cage. You open a spring-loaded door on either end and set a rod to hold it open. Inside the cage, there's a little floor panel that's connected to that rod and when the animal steps upon said floor panel, the rod holding the door open disengages and the door comes slamming down, sealing the critter inside.
Well, that's how it's supposed to work…accent on the "supposed" part.
Twice, The Kitten managed to walk in, get the food and miss the floor panel. Her front paws were past it, her back ones were behind it and she never put her weight on it. Now I know how the Coyote feels when those shoddy, inferior Acme products fail to trap the Road Runner.
Third time she went in, I was standing as close by as I dared stand…just inside the patio door. I was poised to sneak out and spring the trap behind her once she was inside — and I came damned close. It's just that I have feet the size of Cadillac Escalades. She heard me and bolted a micro-second before the lid slammed shut. Missed it, as a certain Mr. Smart used to say, by that much.
Okay, I decided. Fourth time's the charm. I got a mop and I figured I'd use that to trip the door from a few feet away. I waited 'til my nemesis was wholly inside the trap and was nibbling Star-Kist…I slid the patio door open without a sound…I hefted my mop handle and started moving it towards the latch…
And then along came a possum.
This big, homely possum came waddling up to the porch in search of the food that's usually out there. The Kitten got distracted and I could see her getting ready to sprint from the trap. I lunged with my mop handle but it was too late. She was past the barrier when it came crashing down. Thanks, you big, homely possum, you.
By then, it was four in the morn. I was tired of it all and I figured it would be at least an hour before The Kitten forgot about the experience and could be enticed into the trap again…if she even came back at all after that scare. So I gave up. I unset the trap (if I left it open, I'd probably catch the wrong cat again or a raccoon or that big, homely possum) and I went to bed. This morning at 8:15 when I checked, The Kitten wasn't around…and soon the neighborhood was swarming with men using leaf blowers so I doubt I'll see her for a while.
I didn't mean this to take so much of your time, people. If I'd known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have started doing it diary-style here. But thank you for all the e-mails of advice and I hope to end our long national nightmare soon.
Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 9:27 AM
Still out there. Still mocking me. Last night, we danced around for a couple hours. I was working on a deadline and every time I finished two pages, I'd go down and there'd be The Kitten, hanging out on the back porch, crying and wondering where the usual food was and going everywhere on my property except into the trap.
(Memo to The Kitten: The usual food is there, you pussy. It's in the trap. You have to go in there to get it. Do you understand the concept? Get into the trap!)
More than a hundred of you have sent in suggestions and I'd send you all thank you notes but I'm too busy trying to get The Kitten into the trap. I'm doing everything I can imagine working, as well as a few things I can't imagine will work but they're the kind of things you do when you're desperate. No, I have not tried sedating her yet. Apart from the fact that I don't know what you use for that or where to get it, that just feels so wrong to me. I know the vets will dope her up but they know what they're doing and I'm determined to do this drug-free.
My big problem is that I can't just set the trap and leave it. There are too many other cats (and at night, possums and raccoons) who will get snared. I'm not sure the trap will even spring if The Kitten does wander in and I'm not there to spring it. Twice, she went in, dined and strolled out without triggering the door mechanism.
I'm going to keep at this on the assumption that eventually, she will be hungry enough to get reckless and go in. Or maybe she'll just get cocky and go into the trap just to taunt me, knowing full well she can get out.
By the way: You may recall that I "rented" this trap on Saturday for ten bucks a day, and the idea is that if you don't return it in a week, they charge the cost of buying the trap to your credit card. I think I'm buying this trap. I just wish it worked.
Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 11:50 PM
The Kitten. Not in the trap.
I'm very close to giving up on this. I've been trying since Saturday to get a probably-preggo pussycat into a humane (they assure me) trap so I can take her in for shots and fixing and whatever else a vet can do for this most feral of felines. She walks around the trap. She sits by the trap. She even feigns that she is about to go into the trap. This last is done just to get my hopes up so they can be dashed anew.
So I'm very close to giving up…and I would if I could think of any better scenario. The Kitten is homeless and fertile and will only create a whole litter of others in the same state.
Earlier today, I tried the hands-on approach again. I put on some gloves and had my assistant Tyler standing by with that plastic pet carrier I purchased. I figured it might be easier, if I just picked up The Kitten, to put her in that and then transfer her to the trap. (The vet for some reason requires that I bring her in in a trap, not in a carrier.) It took a half hour of petting and maneuvering to get her into a position where I could pick her up. She did not like it. She did not like it a lot.
She kicked and hollered and squirmed and there was no way to get her little body through the door of the carrier. I finally lost my grip and she sprinted for the adjoining zip code. I've decided this will never work, even if I throw (as some of you have suggested) a towel over her. I think it's the trap or nothing.
Friday, April 11, 2008 at 3:53 AM
I was going downstairs to check on the trap when I heard the snap. It had been sprung! My heart and I raced down and out to the back porch where, sure enough, I found a trap containing one very unhappy feline.
Unfortunately, it was the wrong unhappy feline.
And boy, was it upset to be in there…kicking, howling, slamming the sides of the trap. When I opened the door to let it out, it rocketed out there doing just under Mach 1 and I thought, "Well, we won't see that one in the yard again"…a prediction that held true for a good eight minutes before it was back and heading into the trap. This time, I chased it off before it got all its whiskers through the entrance.
The Kitten apparently witnessed the whole incident and I thought (again, wrongly) that it would make her less likely to go in there. Not so. A few minutes after I'd reset the thing, she walked in, got a few bites of the food in there…and strolled out, missing the triggering footplate. She's good at that.
We always make that mistake of thinking that an animal has a thought process identical to a human. They can be very smart but not in the same way we can be very smart. Well, some of us can be very smart. I, for example, am dumb enough to be up at this hour, writing a script and running downstairs every twenty minutes or so to see if I've caught anything.
Do you know I've written network television shows that didn't last as long as this whole, as-yet-unfulfilled incident of The Kitten? And some of them were almost as funny.
I'm giving up 'til the morning light and I just closed down the trap. I don't think I could sleep, worrying that some terrified, claustrophobic possum was in there being traumatized. It's bad enough The Kitten's going to have to be in there…and note that I still have an utterly groundless optimism that some day, she will be. So good night, Internet. And good night, Kitten. Wherever you are.
Friday, April 11, 2008 at 8:22 PM
Mocking me no longer…
Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 12:32 AM
So I set the trap again around a little before sundown, baiting it with some steamed cod I got yesterday from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I cut a piece of cardboard to line part of the floor so The Kitten wouldn't have to walk on grating when she ventured inside to get the cod. And then I covered most of the trap with a towel and left it there on the back porch where I usually feed The Kitten and many other critters.
I ran down every twenty minutes or so to check on the trap, as I've been doing since I started this hunt last Saturday. This evening, The Kitten was wandering around, occasionally sniffing the outside of the trap, just as she's been doing all week. Occasionally, another neighborhood cat — including the one I caught last night and the one I caught a few days ago — were hovering nearby and I chased them off. Around 7:45 when I checked, that was the situation. A little after eight, I went down and found The Kitten inside the trap…and very unhappy about it.
Actually, "unhappy" doesn't begin to describe it. Screaming. Yelling. Clawing at the cage walls. Struggling to reach through and claw me or anything nearby. Very upset.
I've moved the trap and its new inhabitant into the garage for the night. The expert tells me to keep her in the dark and not to worry too much about feeding her. Apparently, they can't perform the surgery if she's eaten in the last 12 or so hours.
I did not feel joyous about my "catch." Well, I guess I'm relieved that after a week of this, this part is over…but The Kitten is so miserable in that trap — and I can imagine the agony of riding in the car tomorrow, to say nothing of being in the vet's office. I tell myself it's for the better and that it had to be done, and I absolutely believe that. It just doesn't feel like that right now.
Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 1:46 PM
Well, I feel a lot better about the whole thing this morning. As you may recall, I caught The Kitten in the trap last night about eight. I moved it and her into the garage and she was about as uncomfortable as you'd be if I crammed you into one of those little cages. I soon discovered that she was relatively calm and accepting if she couldn't see anything or anyone. If I had the towel over the cage and the lights out, she was serene and quiet. If she saw me coming in to check on her, she began howling. So I stopped going out to check on her.
This morning, I confirmed with the vet that they could take her today and then I went out to the garage. She was peaceful until she saw me and then began howling. (By the way: Remember I said I put a piece of cardboard down on the floor of the trap? Well, she'd gnawed and clawed it into confetti. It looked like Rip Taylor had gotten into the cage with her and done his act. Talk about cruelty to animals…)
I covered the back seat of my car with newspaper and towels, then placed the trap with her in it on top of all that. I was expecting her to yell and meow all the way to the vet's but once I covered the cage, she quieted down and I didn't hear a peep out of her the entire journey; not until I took the trap out of the car at the vet's office.
She should be ready to come home tomorrow, and they say I should keep her in the trap in the garage for a day or two before returning her to the wilds of my backyard.
While I was filling out forms at the veterinarian's office, I came to the place where I had to fill in the name of the patient. It seemed insensitive or wrong somehow to write down "The Kitten" so I pulled a moniker out of thin air…or more likely, a song Groucho used to sing. Henceforth, The Kitten shall be known as Lydia. That's what I'm going to call her in the future whenever I speak to her. Whether she'll be speaking to me remains to be seen.
Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 9:38 AM
I want to thank the 200+ of you who sent in suggestions about how to trap The Kitten and/or messages of interest and concern. At one point when it was looking hopeless and I momentarily thought of giving up, I was emboldened by the thought, "No, no…I have a story going on the weblog. It needs a better ending than me throwing in the towel."
I would also like to thank several of you who surprised me with donations to help pay for The Kitten's spaying and the cost of the trap and such. If anyone else would like to surprise me, here's the donation link. I thank you and Lydia thanks you.
Actually, Lydia can't thank you in person because she's still sitting in a cage out at the vet's office awaiting surgery. As we all know, there is a health care crisis in this country and it apparently extends to the neutering of feral cats. The vet had an emergency yesterday and couldn't get around to her then. I'm assured she'll be going under the knife later today and that I'll probably be bringing her home tomorrow. Also, she can't thank you because she's a cat and she doesn't have Internet access.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 10:22 AM
"I haven't seen a word about Lydia on your site in days, Mark, and I'm worried. Please, please reassure me she is all right. I have come to care about that little cat in a way I do not care about some members of my own family." So writes Jennifer Wahl, whose e-mail was but one of many that's shown up in my e-mailbox the last day or so. Here, as they say, is the latest…
I just spoke to the vet's office and they say Lydia is resting comfortably after the surgery, which was performed last evening. She is already eating which, they say, is an excellent sign. She was pregnant. She is no longer pregnant, nor can she get that way again. She has had all her shots and is now in fine shape, but I'm going to board her there for another day of post-op, just in case, and also because I'm too busy to get out there and pick her up today. Tomorrow, I will bring her home and return her to a backyard which has not seemed the same without her. My house sitter will pay special attention to her while I'm away in the wilds of Manhattan.
And that, pretty much, is that. We can now turn our attention to getting certain members of Jennifer Wahl's family spayed so perhaps she can care a little about them.
Thanks again to all who have sent suggestions, encouragements and especially donations. I didn't start telling this story so you folks would pay the cost of fixing Lydia but that's how it turned out.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 8:32 PM
That's another photo of Lydia, the animal formerly known as The Kitten. Want to know what's special about it? I took it in my backyard about twenty minutes ago. Lydia is home from the vet and back in her natural habitat. She seems a bit skinnier — and not just because she's no longer preggo — but in pretty good shape. I had assumed it might be several days before she got back in her regular routines…if she ever got back to them. But ten minutes after I released her from the cage, she was back in her old favorite location: Right outside the patio door, waiting for me to come out and pet her and feed her. Which I did.
I spoke today to my actor friend — the one who fielded my initial call about what to do about the feral one in my yard. He rattled off some statistics that I didn't catch but the exact numbers don't matter. The quick summary is that a staggering number of cats (more than you imagine) are put to death each week in this country because no one will adopt them, no one will feed them, no one will take them in…and to let them roam free and unspayed is to just ask for more.
One of the many "stray" experts I spoke to the other day said the following; that while it was commendable that Bob Barker spread the word to "spay or neuter your pet," that counsel was missing the bigger problem, which are cats and dogs that are nobody's pet. A pet cat that is kept indoors is not as likely to have kittens as a stray roaming through yards and living under houses. The kittens of a pet cat are more likely to be cared for and adopted than the offspring of a feral feline. More people need to take care of critters like Lydia.
Sorry to hear of the passing of comedian Rick Ducommun, one of the funnier stand-ups I recall seeing during the eighties. He was a Canadian gent who I recall doing some of the funniest sets I ever saw on the stage of Budd Friedman's Improv up on Melrose. A lot of folks would know him best as an actor in quite a few movies including Spaceballs, Die Hard, Groundhog Day, The Hunt for Red October and a particularly standout role opposite Tom Hanks in The 'Burbs. He headlined at least one HBO standup special which I wish they'd rerun so I could get a copy.
Nice guy, too. I actually brought him in once to do the voice of a stand-up comedian mouse in an episode of Garfield and Friends. We talked a bit about our mutual weight problems and I was pleased to see that he soon got himself down to a more human size. He died "due to complications from a protracted illness," reports a friend of his, another very funny guy named Rick…Rick Overton. I hadn't seen Ducommun anywhere for quite a while and I guess that illness was the reason.
Here's a short set he did at the 1989 (I think) Comic Relief show. The topics are not for the easily offended but I think the guy was nothing but funny…
Here's an episode of CBS Summer Playhouse, which was a series back in 1987 that played off unsold pilots. There are two here, hosted by Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell Reid, who were about to star in a new series (i.e., a sold pilot) called Frank's Place.
The first of the two unsold ones is Puppetman, a situation comedy from Jim Henson's company, all about backstage at a TV show not unlike Sesame Street. Fred Newman stars as the lead puppeteer. Fred specializes in odd voices and sounds and had done some work with Henson at the time, I believe. The other puppeteer is played by Richard Hunt, who was one of the key Muppeteers, handling — among others — Scooter, Beaker, Janice and Statler. Also in the cast were Julie Payne and Jack Burns. Burns had worked with Henson as a writer on The Muppet Show.
I've worked with Julie Payne for years on Garfield cartoons — she plays Jon's girlfriend Liz among other roles — so I called her and asked her to write down what she recalled of it. Here's what she sent me…
My being cast may have been thanks to Jeremy Stevens, one of the writer-producers. He was a childhood friend of my husband, in Brooklyn. The idea of working with Jim Henson and doing scenes with his puppets was a bit of heaven. I looked forward to working with him and getting to know him, but that didn't really happen; he was busy with the puppeting aspects, and we actors were working on scenes. Very friendly cast. But the week was a bit of a blur. I got the flu and sat through the rehearsal days with my head on the table, getting up only to run through my scenes. Someone on the crew told me to take two of her favorite antihistamines — big mistake. I remember driving home on the freeway at about 30 miles per hour.
The other pilot in the half-hour is called Sawdust and it was created and written by Gary Markowitz, who worked on a lot of good shows (like Larry Gelbart's United States) in the seventies and eighties. It's a fun, interesting show about circus performers and while it seems a bit too unusual for CBS at the time, I enjoyed it…and hey, it even had a small role in it played by the unofficial Stooge, Mousie Garner…
Next Monday in the United Kingdom, some TV channel (I don't know which one) is airing a special four-part episode of The Garfield Show called "Rodent Rebellion." This was a special we did after the completion of our fourth season. Stan Freberg had a couple of small roles in it and I believe it represents his final performance as a cartoon voice actor. I'm told it will run in the U.S. later this year.
Stan's extraordinary career began doing voice tracks for Warner Brothers cartoons which were recorded in 1945 and released in 1946. We recorded "Rodent Rebellion" on June 24, 2014 and I think this will be its first telecast in English. So I figure the math as 69 years, though I suppose someone could argue for 70. Either way, it's a career track record that I do not think will ever be beaten. And it's just a small accomplishment among the many in the life and times of that amazing, talented man.
By the way: After we recorded that episode, the entire cast and as much of the crew as was present adjourned to a restaurant to celebrate…most appropriately, an Italian restaurant where many ordered lasagna. Stan and his wonderful wife Hunter joined us and at one point, one of the actors came up to me and said, "I've done quite a few of these when you've had him in the session and I still have trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that I'm working with the guy who created all those wonderful records and commercials." I feel the same way.
I sometimes let aspiring voice actors sit in on our recording sessions. Back in 2010, a talented lady named Cia Court, who is now working a lot I hear, visited a session when Stan was present. This is what she blogged at the time.
So: 34 or 35 years after he'd recorded Volume One of Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Stan Freberg began preparing to record Volume Two. I got to help…a little. Very little. I'll tell you in a moment how little.
One of the things I learned about Stan — and this is by no means a criticism — is that as a creative individual, he made up his mind how something should be and then he achieved it. When he produced advertising, his contracts often said something like, "Mr. Freberg shall be the sole judge of whether something is funny." If you hired Stan, he did what he did and you just had to accept it…or not.
I have worked with other people — some, very talented — who tried to create that kind of "my way or the highway" situation and it can be painful. It's bad enough to watch someone drive off the cliff but it's worse when there were people around who warned them…or still worse, were not allowed to. Somehow, doing it His Way, Stan managed to produce a stunning lifetime body of memorable work.
He was not insistent on His Way when he worked for others on their projects. When he came in to do voices on cartoon shows I voice-directed for example, he was totally cooperative and eager to please. He was also very good and his presence in the studio — and I am not kidding about this — made the other actors better. In the last few days since Stan left us, several of those actors have written to me to say how working with Stan Freberg was among the greatest thrills of their lives…and very, very educational.
However: On a Stan Freberg endeavor, everything had to be to the liking of Stan Freberg. I always thought one of the reasons he preferred radio to television was that he had more control in radio. With his gift for voices and ability to do multiple roles, it was easier to make things sound the way he wanted than to get them to look the way he wanted.
As I said above, I did very little, emphasis on the "very." This is a first-person narrative of my involvement because I was in a unique position to watch a master at work. If it sounds like I'm saying I deserve some credit for the resultant album, look closer. I did nothing that substantially affected the end-product. You couldn't. Stan Freberg making a Stan Freberg record was like Arnold Palmer playing golf. You could drive him to the golf course. You could carry his clubs. But he was the only one who was going to hit the ball.
His producer was his wife Donna, who had been the producer on just about everything he'd done for the past few decades. One of the reasons she was the ideal producer for him was that she made no attempt to interfere with content. I'll tell you in the next part some of the things she told me about what it was like to be Stan's producer but the main one was: "Stan has to make the record Stan wants to make the way he wants to make it."
Which is not to say he was not willing to question his own work, decide something wasn't right and change it…but he was going to be the one changing it. Most of the material for Volume Two of S.F.P.t.U.S.o.A. was written not long after he recorded Volume One. When it came time to at long last record it, Stan went back and rewrote a number of lines that seemed dated. With the hindsight of several decades, he also altered or discarded portions he no longer liked. The passing of time dictated other changes: He had tentatively cast all the roles with the same stock company he used on Volume One but some of those folks were no longer available.
The great Paul Frees had provided the super-authoritative voice of the Narrator. You may remember how he sounded…
Alas, the great Paul Frees was now the late Paul Frees. Stan wanted a sound-alike for consistency and was about 95% convinced no human being alive could properly replicate that voice. He said to me, "I may have to listen to Paul over and over and learn how to imitate that voice myself." In his youth, I'll bet Stan could have done it. He was an incredible mimic. But I told him I had The Guy.
When you go to Disneyland and ride Pirates of the Caribbean or visit The Haunted Mansion, you hear the original, ominous vocal stylings of Mr. Frees recorded way back when. But over the years as those attractions have changed, it was deemed necessary to change a few lines. The new lines were seamlessly inserted and they were done by Mr. Corey Burton.
At the time Stan asked me to help him make Volume Two happen, I was casting voices for a proposed (but ultimately unrealized) new cartoon show. I had already decided on Stan for one of the lead roles and had Corey in mind for another. I had to have them both come in and record audition material so that the Executive Producer could sign off on my selections so I scheduled them back-to-back. One afternoon, I recorded Stan and then asked to him to stick around as Corey arrived.
I think Stan was expecting that the guy I said could do a perfect Paul Frees would be older and scowling and would look like Orson Welles…or at least, Paul. Corey is a short, pleasant-looking younger fellow. When he arrived and I introduced him, Stan gave him a look of withering skepticism, then took me aside and said, "Are you sure he can sound like Paul?" I grinned like a guy with four aces: "Just listen!" (By the way, I am not claiming a lot of credit for this bit of casting. Anyone who knew anything about the current talent pool for voice actors would have known Corey was the go-to guy when you needed Paul Frees. It's just that Stan didn't.)
Corey went into the booth, got on the microphone and began warming up. I was on the other side of the glass, next to the audio engineer, and Stan was next to me. Over the speakers, we heard The Voice saying, "Stan Freberg…modestly presents…the United States of America." It sounded, of course, perfect and I turned to Stan, waiting for him to say, "My God, you were right!"
Instead, he said, "Okay, now I want to hear him." He thought he was listening to a reference recording of Paul Frees.
I said, "That is him." I pushed the button so Corey could hear me and asked him to do some different lines in the same voice. He said, still sounding exactly like Paul Frees, "Sure, Mark…what do you want me to say?"
That was when Stan said, "My God, you were right." In an interview later, he said, "When I realized it was him and not Paul, I got cold chills. I would have bet anything that was Paul." Here is Corey Burton on the final album…
See what I mean?
The three other major performers besides Stan on Volume One were Jesse White, Peter Leeds and Byron Kane. Back in 196whatever, Stan had designated major roles on Volume Two for all three of them but Byron had also died. Lorenzo Music filled his parts, and since I had voice-directed Lorenzo on Garfield cartoons — occasionally guest-starring Stan — everyone, including Lorenzo, assumed I had cast him. Nope. That was all Stan's doing.
Peter Leeds was alive and available. So was Jesse White but I'd worked with Jesse not long before on Garfield. I loved the guy so I will say this as politely as I can: He was not in good health and he was not up to the kind of performance Stan needed from him. Since I'd just been proven right about Corey, Stan trusted me on this. He gave Jesse a small cameo role on Volume Two and selected David Ogden Stiers to play the other parts for which Jesse had been penciled in.
It was very sad the day Jesse recorded. He was failing and it took many takes to get anything even remotely useable. One of our engineers said to Stan, "Guess you're going to have to have someone else redo that part."
Stan said, "No. Jesse was a big reason why Volume One was so successful. I want him to be a part of this one and besides, that may be Jesse's last performance and I'd never forgive myself if I threw away his last performance." It may indeed have been Jesse's last because he passed away not long after Volume Two was released and so did Peter Leeds.
From the original album, Stan also managed to bring back June Foray and there was one other cast member we couldn't find. Shepard Menken played a number of roles and was probably eager to be part of Volume Two. I say that because several years earlier, I'd directed him on an episode of Garfield and Friends and we'd talked about his involvement in S.F.P.t.U.S.o.A., which he said was one of the items on his résumé of which he was the proudest. He told me, "Stan keeps talking about recording Volume Two and I hope he calls me for it."
Unfortunately, when that time came, no one could locate Mr. Menken. After Donna gave up looking, I was assigned to track him down but his agent told me, as he'd told her, "I don't know where he is. Shep's kind of dropped off the face of the earth." Someone at the Screen Actors Guild told me, "If you find him, let us know. We have checks for him that came back to us marked 'No longer at this address.'" He was eventually located but not in time to be on Volume Two. He passed away in 1999.
Stan and Donna however assembled a fine ensemble to support the returning players. In addition to Peter Leeds, Lorenzo Music and David Ogden Stiers, they booked Naomi Lewis, William Woodson, Stan's son Donavan and his daughter Donna Jean. The investors and the folks at Rhino Records wanted some "star names" as cast insurance for a project they knew would be costly so Stan and Donna recruited Tyne Daly, Sherman Hemsley, John Goodman and Harry Shearer. All were folks who'd told Stan how much they loved Volume One. Billy May, who'd arranged and conducted the music for Volume One, went to work on Volume Two.
So with the script, cast and music in place, Stan Freberg finally did something that fans and friends had been urging him to do for thirty-five years. He went into a recording studio to record Volume Two of Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America. In what was very much a "dream come true" moment for me, I got to be there. In the next part, I'll tell you what I observed and how little I did.
As you'll see, my biggest contribution involved distracting Ray Bradbury who dropped by to urge Stan to insert some lines about how Bill Clinton was destroying the real United States of America. As you'll also see, even Stan's close friend Ray Bradbury couldn't persuade Stan to do anything Stan didn't want to do. Next time.
Leonard Maltin remembers Stan Freberg. I was present for the "impromptu musicale" he describes and I recall the delight of the audience…and the look of disbelief/joy on Leonard's face that he was playing piano to accompany Stan Freberg.
The New York Times has a nice piece by Douglas Martin, which I came across because of this Tweet…
One quibble: It says Stan's career doing voices for animated cartoons ended in 2011. Just for the sake of accurate history (and to not truncate Stan's amazing longevity in this profession), Freberg was a semi-regular on The Garfield Show for the last few years and did his last recording for us in June of 2014.
He appeared in a number of episodes done for the show's fourth season and his last session was to record an hour-long special we produced after the completion of Season 4. The fourth season and that special have aired all over the world but not yet in this country. I am told Cartoon Network here is planning to run them this October.
The word "genius" gets tossed around a lot in the entertainment world, applied at times to anyone who has been anywhere near a success. One of the few people I've met who truly earned it was Stan Freberg.
Stan had more than a few successes. Right out of high school, he was hired as a cartoon voice actor for Warner Brothers Cartoons. He was half the cast on one of the first hit TV shows for kids, Time for Beany. He was a best-selling recording artist for Capitol Records, creating discs that have stood the test of time for both inventiveness and sheer musical delight. He starred in the last real network radio comedy show in the classic tradition.
And then he got into advertising, bringing the concept of the "entertaining commercial" to a whole new level. For a long time in this country, if you laughed at a radio or TV ad, it was either created by Stan Freberg or by an advertising agency that was consciously trying to imitate Stan Freberg.
Those were the highlights of his career and there were others as an actor, puppeteer, voice performer, writer and all-around creative talent. He inspired several generations of notable practitioners in his fields.
I had a long and fascinating history with Stan, starting when at an early age, I discovered his work and loved every single bit of it. I used to tell him — quite honestly — that I got a goodly chunk of my sense of humor from him. I was hardly the only person who told him things like that. I later got to know him and work with him and consider him a very close friend. I'll post some more stories about him in the coming days.
Six months and three days ago, some of us were involved in a tribute to Stan that was staged at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Stan was like a little kid on Christmas morning, he was so happy to be there. So were an awful lot of Freberg fans who were thrilled to be able to give Stan the gift of their applause…a small payback for all that he had given them.
Today in the early morning, he died in the place he most enjoyed being…in the arms of his beloved wife, Hunter. She took such good care of him. Without her, I have no doubt we'd have lost him years ago. He was 88.
People are writing and calling to ask me if I know of plans for a public memorial. There are no plans yet. I believe there will be something but not for a while.
Stan Freberg was an extraordinary man. He was very honest and very perceptive, an observation which should come as no surprise to anyone who knew him only through his work. That was one of the things that was so compelling about it: Even his advertising was truthful. He would not sell a product, no matter what fee was involved, if he didn't believe in the message. He was one of the first people in his field to turn against cigarette advertising, for example.
He was gifted with an amazing imagination and the performing gifts necessary to transfer that imagination into something that others could see and hear. He was a wonderful singer, a superb mimic and a terrific actor. And take note of this: Of all the actors who'd been doing voices for animation in recent years, Stan was the guy who'd been at it the longest. He recorded his first cartoon voice roles in 1945 for release in 1946. As far as I know, his last job was in an episode of The Garfield Show I voice-directed last year. It's currently scheduled to run on Cartoon Network this October, giving Stan a career span of 69 years.
Right after Stan's first wife died, I would go over and take him out to dinner, just to get him out of the apartment. One night, I took him to Matteo's, an Italian restaurant that like so many in Los Angeles, boasts not so much about its food but about that fact that Frank Sinatra used to dine there often.
The maître d' they had then would greet you and then, to make you feel special, he would tell you, "I'm going to seat you in Mr. Sinatra's booth." Every time I went to Matteo's, I was seated in Mr. Sinatra's booth and it was a different booth every time.
I don't think it's there now but when you walked in, you passed a display of photos that looked like a shrine to Mr. Sinatra. As the maître d' escorted us to tonight's Mr. Sinatra's booth, we passed it and I pointed out a picture. It was this picture…
The man you don't recognize at lower left is record tycoon Glenn Wallichs. The others were then the top recording artists for Capitol Records: Frank, Danny Kaye, Gordon MacRae, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin and Stan. That evening at Matteo's, Stan was the only one still with us.
I pointed to it and said, "Hey, Stan! There's you with Frank!" The maître d' whirled around and gasped, "You mean you actually met him?" It was pretty much the same line reading he'd have given if I'd said, "Hey, Stan! There's you with Jesus Christ!" Stan did know Frank. They were good friends. Once when Frank toured Australia, he took along Freberg as his opening act.
We had a lovely dinner. When I asked for the check, our waiter said, "It's been taken care of." I thought Matteo's was comping us but no. A minute later, he came over with a cloth napkin on which another diner in the restaurant – one, the waiter said had already left – had written in ballpoint pen…
Mr. Freberg…you don't know me but your work has meant so much to me over the years. It's an honor to pay you back in even a tiny way by paying for your dinner tonight.
It was not signed.
Stan sat quietly when he read it and he cried a tiny bit. Being around him, I was aware that he often got reactions and praise like that and it wasn't just "You're very funny," though there was that. More often, it was heartfelt acknowledgement that the work was special and that, like the guy said on the napkin, it "has meant so much to me over the years." That's kind of the same thing I've been trying to say here but I didn't have a cloth napkin.
